333 Auctions offers important Pennsylvania art collection on Nov. 20
Nov. 2, 2004
Lambertville , NJ - On November 20, beginning at 12 noon Eastern time, 333 Auctions will offer 150 works of art from the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial Collection under the direction of Jeffrey Fuller Fine Art, Ltd. The Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, administered by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is one of the oldest and largest community-based art programs in the nation. It has offered tuition-free art classes since its creation as the Graphic Sketch Club in 1898, and has educated or exhibited almost 200,000 individual artists – including most Philadelphia natives of note – over its 106 years of operation.
The paintings and prints in the collections were largely acquired at annual exhibitions of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the 1950s and 1960s. A number of the acquisitions were made to recognize Fleisher’s distinguished teaching artists and bastions of the Philadelphia art world such as Julius Bloch, Larry Day, Filomena Dellaripa, Ben Eisenstat, Tom Gaughan, Martin Jackson, Leon Karp, Patricia Mangione and Benton Spruance. Other works offered represent excellent examples of the best work of that era, including an important transitional painting by Will Barnet; and prints by Gabor Peterdi, Misch Kohn and Mauricio Lasansky.
Highlights of the auction include: a Liquitex on grey canvas titled Sept.10, 1967 by On Kawara, estimated at $25,000-35,000; an untitled, graphite, gouache and pastel on paper by Cy Twomby estimated at $25,000-35,000; The Game, an oil on canvas by Joseph Hirsch estimated at $6,000-8000; Summer Holiday, a 1948 oil on canvas by Will Barnet estimated at $4,000-6,000; and Lamentations, an oil on canvas by Benton Spruance estimated at $3,000-$5,000.
Other outstanding works are an oil on paper by Jayley Lever, 1932, Signac Bridge, Passaic, New Jersey; a 1985 screenprint in colors titled Forms in Space by Roy Lichtenstein; a hand colored mixograph on paper titled Juggler, 30" x 22" by Ruffino Tamayo, Malabrista, ca. 1976; and an untitled Type "C" color photograph (self-portrait of a pregnant lady) by Cindy Sherman.
Other leading artists represented in the sale include Joe Andoe, Karel Appel, Toussaint Auguste, Leonard Baskin, Sister Corita Kent, Barbara Hepworth, Christo, Patrick Heron, Graham Sutherland, John Walker, Lee Lozano, Martin Jackson, Gyorgy Kepes, Claire Van Vliet and many others.
Also featured is an outstanding collection of Russian icons, acquired by Samuel and Edwin Fleisher during their lifetime, including a few pieces collected in Russia in the 1920s. They are largely 17th-19th century works, many of the “peasant craft” type, depicting archetypal images of the Madonna and Child that are based on the miraculous images of the Virgin of Smolensk and Kazan and the Crucifixion.
Over the past 35 years, the Fleisher Art Memorial has recognized that, it is, at its heart, a school – even though, Samuel Fleisher’s will permits it to function as a museum. Today, the school continues to offer free classes in drawing, ceramics, and printmaking. In 2002, another building opened which is dedicated to works on paper. The Fleisher Art Memorial can no longer care for a permanent collection that it cannot exhibit, conserve and interpret. The proceeds of this sale will support, in a very modest way, the renovations that Fleisher Art Memorial will undergo this winter to make it wheelchair accessible.
View the entire illustrated catalog and bid either absentee or live online through www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
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